POV — Azra'il
Darkness spat me out somewhere else yet again.
[She is a goddess of motion. Smooth transitions are likely against her religion.]
(Was that a joke, Eos?)
[It was a theological observation with unintentional humorous potential.]
(I shall consider it progress.)
The world materialised around me, and this time, it wasn't the rocky field from the previous day. It was Morgana's house. The same small stone and timber house I had seen in the first memory, but... different.
Messy.
Bundles of clothes scattered across the floor. Open wooden crates, some full, others empty. Pots and pans heaped haphazardly. The table where Kilam had served beef stew was now covered with sacks of provisions and cloth-wrapped tools.
The light streaming through the window was raw, practical, the morning sun, devoid of any supernatural golden glow. Just normal light illuminating the chaos of a family preparing to depart.
[Analysis: Approximately seventy-two hours after the previous event. Subjects are in the process of permanent evacuation.]
[Technically, "strategic relocation" would be the more—]
[...Fleeing is an acceptable term.]
Kilam was at the centre of the chaos, trying to organise the unorganisable. He appeared to have aged ten years since the last memory: deep bags under his eyes, shoulders hunched, but his movements were determined. The kind of determination that comes when you have no choice but to push forward.
And there, perched on a wooden chair near the door, was Kayle.
Arms crossed. Expression closed. Her knee still bandaged with the strip from Morgana's tunic.
She was not helping.
"Kay," Kilam said, his voice weary but patient, "can you at least pack your things? We need to leave before midday."
"No."
The word came out hard. Final. A seven-year-old child with all the stubbornness in the world concentrated into a single syllable.
Kilam sighed, running a hand over his face.
"Daughter—"
"If we leave, how will she find us?" Kayle stood up, fists clenched. "The world is big, Papa. Enormous. She'll come down from the mountain to see us and the house will be empty. We'll be somewhere she doesn't know."
Kilam knelt in front of his daughter, getting down to her level.
"Kayle, your mother is..." he hesitated, choosing his words with care, "...she is powerful now. More powerful than anyone. If she wishes to find us, she will. It doesn't matter where we are."
[Probability of subject Kilam believing his own assertion: 12%.]
Kayle bit her lip, that same gesture from before when she was trying not to cry.
"But what if she forgets to look?"
The question hung in the air like an open wound. Kilam didn't answer. He couldn't. How do you tell a seven-year-old that her mother has likely already forgotten they exist?
[That was strangely specific.]
Footsteps came from the other room, and Morgana appeared carrying a wooden crate that was clearly too heavy for her. She wobbled slightly, her face red with effort, but she didn't complain.
"Papa, where shall I put this one?"
Kilam stood up immediately, taking the crate from her hands.
"Morgana, that's far too heavy for you."
"I can do it." Her voice was low but steady. "I want to help."
Morgana looked at her sister, still standing by the door with her arms crossed.
"Come on, Kay. Papa said where we're going there are no wars. We'll be able to play outside without being afraid."
Kayle huffed.
"I'm not afraid of war. I was going to fight in the war."
"You are seven."
"So? Mummy started training at five."
Kilam set the crate down and approached both his daughters. He knelt again, a hand on each small shoulder.
"Listen." His voice was serious, yet gentle. "I know this is hard. I know you don't want to go. But I need you to trust me."
Kayle looked away. Morgana looked him straight in the eye.
"I want a place where the ground doesn't shake, girls. Where we don't live waiting for the next battle, the next storm, the next... the next golden glow in the sky." His voice faltered slightly at the end. "A place where we can have dinner together every night. Where you can grow up in peace."
He squeezed their shoulders.
"We are a family. And families stay together. Wherever we go."
[The paternal protective instinct is one of the most powerful motivational forces in social species.]
Kayle still didn't look convinced, but something in her posture softened. Morgana was already nodding, eyes misty but determined.
"Alright, Papa," Morgana said. "We'll go."
She looked at her sister.
"Kay?"
For a long moment, Kayle didn't respond. Then, reluctantly, she uncrossed her arms.
"Fine. But only because you asked." She looked at her father. "Not because I want to."
The descent from the mountain was long. I floated along with the memory as the small family left the stone house behind. Kilam carried the bulk of the luggage on his back, the girls walking hand-in-hand a few paces ahead.
The terrain was brutal: loose rocks, narrow paths, winds that cut like blades. Targon made nothing easy, not even the leaving. As they descended, one thing became evident: they were not alone.
First, it was one family here, another there. Small groups carrying bundles and children, faces marked by weariness and grit. But the further down they went, the more people appeared. Dozens. Hundreds. A human stream flowing down the mountain like water seeking the sea.
[Analysis: Mass exodus. Estimate of visible participants: three hundred to four hundred individuals. Varied demographic composition: families, the elderly, some individuals with residual magic signatures.]
[The Rune Wars do not discriminate against victims based on arcane ability.]
I watched the people around them. There were farmers with calloused hands, artisans carrying the tools of their trade, children sleeping in the arms of exhausted parents. And amongst them, a few with staves that still glowed faintly, mages who had decided that surviving was more important than fighting.
It's not just a flight. It's a rejection. All these people looking at the mountain and saying 'no thank you, you can keep your gods and your wars'.
Kayle watched everything with wide eyes. It was likely the first time she had seen so many people together; her life had been the house at the foot of the mountain, her father, her sister, and the sporadic visits from a mother who shone too brightly. Morgana walked in silence, her hand still clutching her sister's. She didn't look at the people around them. She looked at her father. One is trying to understand the world. The other is trying not to lose the only scrap of safety left.
"Kilam?"
The voice came from behind a broken cart by the wayside. A man with a grizzled beard and a sun-weathered face waved, a tired smile brightening his features.
Kilam stopped, and for the first time since the memory began, I saw something other than exhaustion on his face.
A smile. Small, but real.
"Haldor." He went to the man, gripping his arm in the greeting of old friends. "I thought you'd never leave your smithy."
"And I thought you'd never leave the shadow of that mountain." Haldor patted Kilam's shoulder. "But there comes a time when one tires of waiting for the next cataclysm, doesn't it?"
Kilam introduced his daughters, Kayle with her suspicious glare, Morgana with her shy politeness, and soon the two men were walking side-by-side, in the comfortable rhythm of those who have known each other for years.
Around them, the human stream continued its descent. Some people stopped to rest, others shared water and bread with strangers. There was a solidarity there, born of shared trauma. It was the beginning of a community. Not through ideology, not through conquest. Just people trying to survive together.
"Are you heading North?" Haldor asked, adjusting the pack on his back. "To the crossing?"
"I'm considering it. They say it's far, but..." Kilam looked at his daughters walking a few paces ahead. "They say it's a peaceful place."
"It's more than peaceful, my friend." Haldor lowered his voice, like someone sharing a valuable secret. "Have you heard of the forests there? Giant trees, with wood as white as bone. They call it Petricite."
Kilam frowned.
"Petricite?"
"A strange wood. They say it..." Haldor gestured, searching for the right words, "...absorbs magic. Calms it down. Those rune storms sweeping the continent? They die when they touch the canopy of those trees. It's like a natural shield."
It seems I was seeing the exact moment the future of Demacia began.
Not with hatred. With hope.
Haldor continued, pointing to a group further ahead where a man was helping a child make small sparks between their fingers.
"Even conjurers are heading there, Kilam. People tired of being forced to fight in armies they didn't choose. There, magic stays quiet. The land is stable. It's a place to plant, to build, to raise children without the fear of waking up with the roof on fire."
I saw Kilam's shoulders relax. The tension he had carried since the confrontation with Mihira dissipated a little.
"A place where magic rests," he murmured, almost to himself. Then he looked at Kayle and Morgana walking ahead, their hands still interlaced. "A place where they can just be girls."
Kilam doesn't hate magic. He loved a woman who became pure magic. He just wants his daughters to have a childhood. Morgana had stopped walking. She was a few paces ahead, but I noticed her head was tilted slightly, listening to her father's conversation.
Her eyes fixed on one of the mages in the group ahead. A young man doing simple tricks to entertain weary children. Light dancing between his fingers, tiny illusions of colourful birds.
She watched for a long moment. Then she looked at her own hands.
[Beings with latent magic potential frequently demonstrate intuitive awareness of their nature before full manifestation.]
"Come on," Kilam said, renewed by what Haldor had told him. He caught up with his daughters and placed a hand on each shoulder. "Let's head for the white forest."
Kayle grumbled something about forests being boring. Morgana said nothing. She simply kept looking at her own hands.
The port, if it could even be called that, was organised chaos. The rocky coast stretched before them, grey and hostile, with waves crashing against stones as sharp as teeth. The sea was rough, white foam flecking the salt-laden air and... something less pleasant.
[Decomposition of marine organic matter. The aroma is consistent with small-scale fishing activity in suboptimal sanitary conditions.]
[Thank you.]
Fishing boats were being loaded with far too many people. Vessels made for ten were taking thirty. Boat masters barked instructions, trying to maintain some order during the boarding.
Kilam guided his daughters through the crowd, a firm hand on each of their shoulders. Haldor followed close behind, helping to carry part of the luggage.
"That one there," Haldor pointed to a boat slightly larger than the others, with a white-bearded captain who seemed more concerned with safety than profit. "Old Marcus. He's honest. He'll get us there in one piece."
Boarding was slow and uncomfortable. People squashed against people, children crying, the elderly trying to find a corner to sit. Kilam managed to snag a spot near the side of the boat, where they could at least see the horizon.
Kayle was strangely quiet. Since they arrived at the port, she hadn't complained once. She hadn't crossed her arms, hadn't questioned, hadn't resisted. When the boat finally pulled away from the shore, she let go of her father and went to the aft.
And she watched.
Mount Targon was still visible, an impossible silhouette piercing the clouds, its peak shining with a light that was not natural. The light of indifferent gods. The light of a mother who had chosen duty over love.
Kayle stood there, motionless, the sea wind messing up her white hair. She didn't cry. Her face was serious, set. And as I watched, something shifted in her eyes. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't longing. It was determination. The cold, hard kind that forms when a child decides she will never be left behind again.
Morgana appeared beside her sister. She said nothing. She simply stood there, by her side. But her eyes weren't on Targon. They were on the horizon ahead. To the North. Into the unknown.
And when she reached out and took her father's hand, as he came to check on them both, there was something in her face that surprised me.
It wasn't fear.
It was hope.
A cautious hope, bruised, but present nonetheless.
She's happy. Despite everything. Because the family is together. Because her father is there. Because she isn't alone.
Kilam sat between the two of them, an arm around each. The boat rocked in the waves, the sea salt mixed with the smell of old wood and too many people.
"It's going to be alright," he said, and this time his voice didn't tremble. "A new life. Just the three of us. No wars, no gods. Just family."
Kayle didn't answer. She kept looking at the mountain vanishing into the distance. Morgana snuggled against her father.
"Papa?"
"Yes, my sweet?"
"In the white forest..." she hesitated, "...will we be able to have a garden? Like Mrs Glinda had in the valley?"
Kilam smiled, a genuine smile, full of affection.
"We shall have the most beautiful garden of all. With flowers, and herbs, and everything you wish to plant."
Promises from a father trying to rebuild a world for his daughters. It's beautiful. And sad. Because I know what comes next. It's hard not to, when you know the white forest will become a nation that persecutes mages and any magical being. And that these two girls carry magic in their blood.
The memory began to unravel at the edges.
The last thing I saw was Kilam hugging his daughters as the boat cut through the grey sea. Three small figures against the vastness of the ocean, leaving behind a mountain of gods and heading towards a forest of silence.
Darkness reclaimed me. But before vanishing completely, I thought: